The Miner's Girl

Chapter 28

(((December 17, 2015)))
Nicole's POV
It is now Thursday morning. We only have two more days here in the mountains; we're going home early Saturday morning. I can safely say that this has been one of the best weeks of my life. A lot of stuff has happened here this week. I love it here so much with Parker. I hope we come back soon. That being said, I miss the family back home in Haines, and I can't wait for Christmas.

Parker has planned everything for today. I have to say, I don't really know what to expect from him. He said it was a surprise. I took a shower and got dressed, and he was up and dressed when I came back into the bedroom.

"Good morning, honey." I smiled.

"Morning." He replied. "You bout ready to go?"

"Yeah. Just a few more minutes, babe."
***
"So where are we going?" I said excitedly as we drove down the road.

He turned his head towards me and smirked. "You'll see. Just calm down."

"Come on, you won't tell me anything."

"I tell you everything."

"You won't tell me where we're going, what I'm getting for Christmas, nothing."

"That's because they're surprises." He smiled.

"Come on, please." I pouted.

"Fine. First, we're going to the Foggy Mountain Gem Mine."

I gasped and smiled. "You know what I'm going to be singing?"

He started laughing. "What?"

"Hi, ho, hi, ho, it's off to work we go....hi, ho, hi, ho, it's off to work we go... We dig, dig, dig, dig....."

"Oh, god. You can't sing about a hoe." He laughed.

I died laughing. "It's not about a hoe."

"Well, it sounds like it."

"I'm singing it the whole time."

He laughed. "Have fun with that."
***
The gem mine was such fun. Parker bought a big bucket of dirt to pan, and we both panned. We found some really cool gems and got them cut. I walked out with a bag full of gems in my purse. Parker thought it was fun; I knew he would, because he loves mining, and he picked it out. We were there for about two hours, I guess.

Then we drove to another place. It was this cute little place called Turtle Island Preserve. It was like a little town. Eustace Conway from the show Mountain Men works there, or lives there, I think. He gave us a tour of the whole thing. He was really nice and fun, and Parker and he talked for a while. We were there for the better part of four or five hours.

Then, we found somewhere to eat. After we ate, we looked around in a little thrift store, because I wanted to, of course. We got back to the cabin around 9:00.

We got into our comfortable clothes and went to sit in the living room by the fireplace. He sat on the couch, and I sat in between his legs on the floor with my laptop in my lap. He massaged my neck while we talked, and I checked on the flight times for Saturday and what we were doing tomorrow.

"After the holidays and stuff, I gotta get back to going to The Dirt set on Fridays." Parker said.

"Ugh. Do you have to? Can't we just go off the grid and just live here?" I chuckled.

"We would run outta money." He chuckled. "The life of a gold miner."

"More like the life of a TV star." I smirked.

"Nah, I'm just a dirty old gold miner."

"I'm a gold miner's girl." I smiled.

"Yes, you are, baby." He smiled as he kissed my head.

We stayed up basically all night; we didn't go to sleep until almost 5:00 in the morning. We stayed in the living room for a bit, talking and some other stuff. Then, we got hungry and went to making concoctions in the kitchen with the food we had bought.  We also made some drinks that were really good. We went outside and sat on the back porch before walking around a little bit. We finally decided that we would go up to the bedroom around 3:30-ish, but we kind of got sidetracked by doing something that was more fun than sleep. We were going to stay up and watch the sunrise, but we were out within ten minutes.
****
(((December 18, 2015)))
"Baby, you gonna sleep all day?" I woke up to hear Parker say.

I groggily opened my eyes and stretched a little. "What time is it?" I yawned.

"3:00." He smiled.

My eyes widened as I sat up in the bed. "Oh, crap. Why didn't you wake me up?......you just woke up too, didn't you?"

He smirked. "Yeah. I went to the bathroom and came back to wake you up. Our last day is almost gone."

"We'll just go on that hiking trail we looked at. It looked cool, right?"

"Yeah. We better get going, though."

"Yeah." I said as I stood up to walk to the bathroom.
***
We obviously had to stop and eat before we went hiking, so we got to the trail around 5:00. We hiked up to a lake, surrounded by mountains. We watched the sunset as we sat by the lake. We may not have seen the sunrise in the mountains, but the sunsets sure are beautiful. By the time we were back to the truck, it was pitch dark outside.

We stopped by Burger King on the way back to the cabin for dinner. It wasn't the fancy restaurant that we had planned for our last night there, but it didn't matter. We were happy, and we were together. That's what is important.

Our last night at the cabin, we didn't really do much. We thought about getting in the hot tub, but we decided to just stay inside and watch a movie by the fireplace.

"Parker?" I said as we were laying on the couch.

"Yeah?"

"Do you really love me?"

He chuckled. "Of course, what kind of question is that? I love you more than anything."

"Really?"

"Yes. Why wouldn't I?"

"I don't know. I'm not perfect, or special, or beautiful or anything."

"You're perfect to me. You're the most beautiful girl that I've ever seen. You are special, because you're everything to me." He said before he kissed me.

"I love you so much, baby." I smiled.

"I love you more." He smiled.